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Population Health Metrics
Published in: Population Health Metrics 1/2018

Open Access 01-12-2018 | Research

Alcohol-impaired driving in US counties, 2002–2012

Authors: Jacob E. Sunshine, Laura Dwyer-Lindgren, Alan Chen, Sam R. Sharar, Erin B. Palmisano, Eileen M. Bulger, Ali H. Mokdad

Published in: Population Health Metrics | Issue 1/2018

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Abstract

Background

Excessive alcohol consumption and alcohol-impaired driving remain significant public health problems, leading to considerable morbidity and mortality, particularly among younger populations.

Methods

Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), we employed a small areas modeling strategy to estimate the county-level annual prevalence of alcohol-impaired driving in every United States county for the years 2002 through 2012, the latest year in which county identifiers were publicly available.

Results

Alcohol-impaired driving episodes declined from 157.0 million in 2002 (prevalence 3.8%: 95% uncertainty interval [UI], 3.7%–4.0%) to 129.7 million in 2012 (prevalence 3.7%: 95% UI, 3.5%–3.8%), a 17.4% decline. There is considerable variation in the prevalence of alcohol-impaired driving at the county level, ranging from 2.0% in the Sitka City Borough of Alaska to 9.3% in Nance County, Nebraska. Clusters of increased alcohol-impaired driving were observed in Northern Wisconsin (Marinette, Florence, Forest, Vilas, Oneida, Iron counties), North Dakota (Cavalier, Pembina, Walsh, Ramsey, Nelson, Benson, Eddy counties) and Montana (Sheridan, Daniels, Roosevelt, Valley, Phillips, Petroleum, Garfield counties).

Conclusions

This study showed guarded progress with respect to the occurrence of alcohol-impaired driving episodes in the US from 2002 to 2012. Because these data rely on self-report, this likely represents an underestimate of the true prevalence of alcohol-impaired driving in the US. As the US continues to have several million episodes of alcohol-impaired driving each month, renewed efforts are needed to mitigate this high-risk health behavior.
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Metadata
Title
Alcohol-impaired driving in US counties, 2002–2012
Authors
Jacob E. Sunshine
Laura Dwyer-Lindgren
Alan Chen
Sam R. Sharar
Erin B. Palmisano
Eileen M. Bulger
Ali H. Mokdad
Publication date
01-12-2018
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
Population Health Metrics / Issue 1/2018
Electronic ISSN: 1478-7954
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12963-018-0158-4

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